Freezing Homemade Bread

The smell of a freshly made loaf of homemade bread can’t be beat. And no bread tastes quite as good as a fresh warm loaf of bread straight out of the oven. But what happens when you want to save some of it for later? Whether you got the homemade bread from a bakery or made it in your very own kitchen, chances are you’ll have leftovers and want to keep it fresh for later enjoyment.

Leaving it out or in a bread box is easy, but will leave you with stale or moldy bread in no time. The best way to it fresh is by freezing homemade bread.

You’ll need to carefully follow these steps so you don’t wind up with frostbitten, hard, or bland bread afterwards.

After getting the bread home or taking it out of the oven, allow the loaf to fully cool before freezing. Go ahead and eat some of it warm if you want because that is when it tastes the very best, but don’t prepare it for freezing until it has cooled to room temperature.

Once cooled down, slice the bread up into standard slices if you want. While you don’t have to slice it up before freezing it’ll make it easier to just grab and thaw a slice when needed rather than thawing and refreezing the loaf multiple times.

Slip the slices into a large freezer plastic bag and press all of the air out while sealing the bag. Get as much of the air out as possible. Next take aluminum foil and tightly wrap the bagged bread in it.

Label the foil with a marker to indicate when the bread was made and when it was frozen.

Slide the sealed and wrapped bread into the freezer making sure not to jam it in or crush it with other items. It’ll take a few hours to fully freeze but then you’ll have frozen homemade bread that will stay fresh up to four months in the freezer.

Whenever you need a slice, unwrap the aluminum foil, open the bag and pull out a few slices. Be sure the reseal the bag and foil quickly and return the bread to the freezer. Allow the slices you pulled out to thaw a little at room temperature, then warm them up in a toaster. Avoid letting the remaining bread thaw out before refreezing and do not use a microwave to heat up the slices or you’ll end up with chewy and doughy bread.